Glossary Term – Event

The Tax Reform Act of 1986 marked the broadest overhauls of the federal tax code in history. It reformed capital gains, deductions, and tax credits, lowered the top income tax rate, and eliminated federal income tax liability for those below the poverty line.

Glossary Term – Event

In August 1982, the United States sent 1,200 US marines to Lebanon as part of an international peacekeeping force to intervene in the Israeli invasion. After continuous conflicts and attacks on the marines by Syrian and insurgent forces, President Reagan finally withdrew them permanently in February 1984.

Glossary Term – Organization

The contras were a counterrevolutionary force aligned against Nicaragua’s Sandinista government, which had overthrown the previous dictatorial government in 1979. The contras received training and funds from the American CIA under Reagan’s administration in the early 1980s, even though Congress had banned such aid with the 1984 Boland Amendment. The National Security Council diverted money and support to the contras through secret weapons’ sales to Iran. The Iran-Contra Affair was uncovered in 1986 and a public outcry ensued. Several high-...

Glossary Term – Organization

The Moral Majority was a fundamentalist Christian organization founded by televangelist Jerry Falwell in 1979. The Moral Majority was established to preserve “traditional” American values and to combat increasing acceptance of social movements and culture changes. The organization became a major political influence in its opposition to gay rights, abortion, feminism, and other liberal movements during the 1980s. In 1989, Falwell disbanded the organization, declaring that it had achieved its goals.

Glossary Term – Organization

Al-Qaeda is the militant Islamist organization founded by Osama bin Laden that was responsible for various acts of terrorism, including the attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001, as well as the attacks on US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 and the suicide bombing of the USS Cole in 2000. Bin Laden organized al-Qaeda in opposition to the Soviet Union during the Afghan War of the 1980s. The group merged, moved, and established itself in various capacities and locations following the Soviet withdrawal...

Glossary Term – Person

Glossary Term – Person

Glossary Term – Person

Glossary Term – Person

Alan Greenspan (1926– ) is an American economist who chaired the Federal Reserve through four presidential administrations. Greenspan was first appointed chairman of the Federal Reserve Board by President Ronald Reagan in 1987. He helped guide the US through times of economic crisis and expansion under Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush. He retired from the Federal Reserve in 2006. In 2011 the bi-partisan Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission found that Greenspan’s support for deregulation and his failure to...